Bible Review

For one attempt to find the Pishon, see James A. Sauer, “The River Runs Dry: Creation Story Preserves Historical Memory,” BAR 22:04.

See especially Baruch Halpern, “Erasing History: The Minimalist Assault on Ancient Israel,” BR 11:06.

For example, one of the most important New Testament manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus, from the monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai, dates to the fourth century—and that is relatively early as far as New Testament codices go. See Leonard Greenspoon, “Major Septuagint Manuscripts—Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus,” sidebar to “Mission to Alexandria,” BR 05:04.

The eucharistic sacrament is a reenactment of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. While bread and wine (which represented the body and blood of Christ) predominated as the tangible elements in the eucharistic rite by the end of late antiquity, fish apparently had a sacramental role in earlier periods. This should not be surprising to us, given that for early Christians the Eucharist constituted a genuine meal and was not simply an emblematic ritual.

See “Extra! Extra! Philistines in the Newsroom,&rd BR 16:04, by yours truly.

All translations of Egyptian inscriptions are from Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature—A Book of Readings, vol. 2, The New Kingdom (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1976), pp. 63–66.

See “Read All About It,” in Strata, BAR 23:05.